by Mark Diodati | October 20, 2011 | Comments Off on Of Identities, Clouds, and Bridges

In response to the large number of client inquiries about identity management and the cloud, Gartner has recently published a research document that discusses identity management as a service (IDaaS)—turnkey identity management services that exist in the cloud.

In addition to discussing the market, the document examines three use cases that intersect identity management and cloud computing:

To the Cloud.Organizations that want to extend their existing identity management processes to manage users in SaaS or partner applications. This use case is the most prevalent and aligns with larger established companies that have significant on-premises IT infrastructure.

In the Cloud.Smaller organizations whose core IT functions are delivered via SaaS applications. These organizations are searching for off-premises, turnkey identity management solutions for users and applications in the cloud. Alternatively, larger organizations with distinct user constituencies might leverage an “in the cloud solution” for a specific user population.

From the Cloud.This is perhaps the most forward-looking use case. Some organizations want to leverage off-premises IDaaS for on-premises identities and applications. Many organizations aren’t comfortable yet with storing user information in an IDaaS application. Therefore, many of the “from the cloud” vendors offer a hybrid solution that stores user information on-premises.

Speaking of “hybrid”, the document discusses an important emerging IDaaS concept: the identity bridge. As organizations straddle on-premises and off-premises identity management, a single, bi-directional, on-premises component becomes essential. Preferably, this component should be delivered as a virtual appliance. Today, most on-premises IDaaS helper gateways are single-function and unidirectional; they work well for simpler use cases. They won’t be up for the task as the organizations add more identity management functions and distribute those functions more evenly between the on-premises environment and the cloud.

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